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Has anyone used that Seachem Stability? I'm told it's good for a fishless cycle. I see a couple of stories so far in the positive. I'm going to do a fishless cycle even though I'm wriggling with glee at the idea of a pack of danios and company.

@RBishop: I've been following your guide in the OP to do fishless cycling in my 5ga Fluval Chi. After 4 full weeks I finally saw my Nitrites drop off to zero and I got pretty pumped that the cycle was (finally) near completion. My question is in regards to the last step to check that the cycle is fully established. When I did a full water change, dosed up to around 4+ppm, and waited 24 hours, I still got a pretty strong NH3 reading of ammonia around 3ppm, indicating the the cycle only ate through ~1ppm NH3. In your opinion, what does this indicate about the readiness of my tank to receive fish?

I've continued to dose ammonia in the 3ppm range for the past week to promote the growth of bacteria, and feel like it's time to introduce some fish (planning on putting in 3 sparkling gourami). I haven't had a day yet where my ammonia turns out to be 0ppm after a 24 hour period - it always hovers around 1-2ppm. I'm using an API drops test kit, and feel it should be fairly accurate.

I'm new here, and new to fish-keeping too. I read something here yesterday about the chemistry in the tank and how to deal with it, but for the life of me can't find it now that I'm ready to do something about it. So, I'm sorry if this question is already out there.

Here's my story:

We got a 20 Gal for my son on his birthday back in Nov '11. I hadn't had any fish since I was maybe 5 (add almost 40 years to that now). So I went to Petco asked a bunch of questions, set up the tank, got a few fish and we've been pretty successful - even though we did the fish-in cycling . We've had a couple of casualties, but we've also had a few babies. I got so obsessed with it, that my wife let me go buy a 29 gal tank for our anniversary (April 14).

I have a friend who is a former fish addict, and she suggested I get some tiger barbs and maybe a red tail shark for my tank, so I did - again with the fish-in cycling. I don't have patience for anything else. Everything was lovely for a week or two. The shark teased the barbs. The barbs teased each other. Er'body was happy until one of the barbs died. Now that I've read some things here on other threads, I think what happened is that once the barb count dropped below 5, they turned on the shark, because one day, I couldn't find him. He honestly just disappeared. No where to be found. For whatever reason, it was at that point I became a bad fish daddy. Real bad. It was 3 weeks before I did a cleaning.

Please don't reprimand me. I know I was bad. I've learned my lesson.

When I finally did a cleaning and water change, everything in the tank had a slime coating on it. The tank did have an odor, but it wasn't a knock you down kind of thing. So I washed everything off, used a dish scrubber that I bought just for the occasion. I found what I think may have been the shark. It was a glob of black goo stuck in one of the plants. A week went by and I did another change (this past weekend). Everything except the spongebob pineapple house felt pretty clean. I washed it off, and put in the quidward house instead. The barbs seem to be doing pretty well despite these tragic events.

The 4 barbs are looking pretty lonely in these 29 gallons, and I'm anxious to get maybe three more, and maybe two sharks, but I wanted to make sure everything was kosher first seeing as how blackie may have helped me infest the tank with too much ammonia. After reading some things on here yesterday, I went back to my Petco, and bought a testing kit. Not the one with the strips, but the real scientific looking one with the glass vials and magic potions you drip into them. This is what it tells me (I think):

PH 7.6 (that was top of the low range, so I did the high range test which was 8)
Ammonia 4
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5

This aint' real good, but I don't know what to do about it. Can I get some other magic poitions to bring down the ammonia and the PH? Are my nitrates too high?

nccrackend- the API ammonia test kit does not test for NH3, it tests for TAN (total ammonia) which includes both NH3 and NH4+ (ammonium). NH4+ is pretty much non-toxic to fish, it is the NH# which is bad. SeaChem makes a test kit for HH3. In the absence of that, one can calculate the actual NH3 portion of TAN from standard charts. The amount of NH3 present in any TAN reading depends upon the pH and temp. of the water. Here is a link to the tables for determining how much "bad" ammonia you might have. http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/AmmoniaTox.html Please note that the person who drew the tables is operating under the theory that NH3 levels of .03 ppm are where problems start. However, the Merck Veterinary Manual states the problems begin when levels reach .05 ppm.

What this means is that there is no single TAN ppm number that is universal for holding ammonia below. The most common number one sees is the .25 ppm mentioned above. That level of ammonia (TAN) is pretty much not toxic to fish until ones tank is at pH 8.4 and having a temp. in the low 80sF. And then it depends which fish as some can handle more or less ammonia and nitrite.

The basic rule is that the higher the pH and the higher the temp, the more toxic any given level of TAN will be. pH is much more important than temperature in terms of toxicity.

I will offer you two suggestions. Firstly, do not dose more ammonia until your tank reads 0. Moreover, the bacteria do not need to be fed every day. Secondly, dosing during a fishless cycling never needs to exceed 2-3 ppm and 1-2 ppm would do the job just fine. Under no circumstances should one allow either ammonia or nitrite levels to exceed 5 ppm as this will inhibit the cycle and rising higher will actually start to kill off the bacteria. There is ample research that shows this. If either level goes above 5 ppm, use water changes to get it down.

If you buy any go with safe start by Tetra. Only bacteria you'll find on a store shelf worth its salt. I used it for a fish in cycle and my cycle was done in days. I'm pretty sure it can be used in a fishless cycle to jump start the culture but I can't speak to that.

Sent from my Droid Incredible using the Monster Aquaria Network app

Last edited by Nepherael; 06-15-2012 at 5:56 AM.

3 10g, 2 snail and grow out, 1 Indian dwarf puffer tank
2.5g gimme ideas!
2 55g, 1 angels based community, 1 livebearer community
125g soon to be FOWLR then reef (pm me if you have small saltwater equipment like a refractometer to sell)

Which I believe isn't watered down like what you would find at the local store so you don't need to use as much. But yeah you're in the clear with whatever you buy as long as it is only ammonia (ammonium chloride)

3 10g, 2 snail and grow out, 1 Indian dwarf puffer tank
2.5g gimme ideas!
2 55g, 1 angels based community, 1 livebearer community
125g soon to be FOWLR then reef (pm me if you have small saltwater equipment like a refractometer to sell)